Separating Modules Makeover

About the Separating Modules Makeover

The goal of this makeover was to show that submissions that contain a number of courses mask the variety of content behind a single title and description. While several courses of material can be aggregated into a single file for the purpose of capturing and preserving the content, such a file does a poor job of showcasing the different material within. A better approach is to use the bulk upload feature to submit each course separately, or perhaps even part of courses. A guiding principle should be that any unit of material that can stand alone and might be reused should be its own submission. If a set of materials should be adopted in a particular sequence, this can be described in a separate document of in a separate aggregate submission.

Submission title: Concepts of Alternating CurrentSubmission link: https://www.skillscommons.org/handle/taaccct/3209Description: The submission is a zip file 1GB in sized. Inside the zip are a few small files for the syllabus, objectives, and concepts presentation, plus 6 large zips, each containing a video-captured lecture on a topic.

The Makeover Process

For a makeover, each small file can be a separate file in the submission with each of the large lecture zips as a separate file as well. Note that each lecture contains videos, and the specific content is masked under a general title for everything. By using separate submission files, each lecture’s video topics can be detailed in the description and, of course, there is no need to download what is not relevant for a particular user.

Each video lecture is wrapped in some presentation and a player. This actually involves many supporting files, although the launch is simply a single file. The player requires a browser plug-in.

Note that these video lectures could be recorded as mp4s or similar and posted to YouTube for access via link. Alternatively, these videos and support files can be hosted and then accessed via link. Getting the material into a learning management system other than by link would be difficult.

As an exercise, the makeover recorded one video, “Concepts of Alternating Current, Introduction to Alternating Current, Resistance in AC Circuits”, and placed it on YouTube under a Creative Commons License and with a suitable title, description, and tags.